Indiana Public Retirement System, Indianapolis, hired Wurts & Associates as the $29.9 billion retirement system's general investment consultant.
Strategic Investment Solutions was the previous consultant. The firm rebid but was not a finalist; NEPC and Pension Consulting Alliance were the other finalists.
An RFP was issued June 23.
David Cooper, the retirement system's chief investment officer, told a meeting of the INPRS board Oct. 31 that Wurts was selected because of the consultant's experience advising on risk-balanced portfolios. INPRS has $2.4 billion in risk-parity investments.
Wurts will conduct an asset-liability study of the retirement system, expected to be completed in April, Mr. Cooper said.
Separately, the system added $50 million to an event-driven hedge fund managed by Ionic Capital Management, raising its overall investment to $100 million.
Also, Pacific Investment Management Co. remains on Indiana Public Retirement's watch list because of organizational changes at the firm. PIMCO was placed on watch in January upon the departure of Mohamed El-Erian as CEO and co-CIO and has been kept on the list after William H. Gross, co-founder and CIO, left in September to join Janus Capital Group.
PIMCO managed $632 million in an unconstrained bond strategy and $467 million in a long-duration government credit strategy, both as of Sept. 30. About $55 million was in the PIMCO Total Return fund for the $6 billion annuity savings account as of June 30.
